AgeChecked Solutions for Alcohol Retailers

Whatever business you are in, you will want to offer your customers a streamlined age checking experience. AgeChecked provides of choice of customer-friendly services.

Online Alcohol Sales

With the online grocery shopping market growing fast, it’s inevitable that we are witnessing a rapid rise in the sale of alcohol online. Internet access to alcohol is becoming a concern as reports show that it is easier to buy alcohol online, if you are underage, than it is if you visit a shop or supermarket. The rules on underage sales of alcohol stem from 1839 and today are consolidated into the Licensing Act 2003.

Information on age restrictions in the alcohol sector in the UK:

It is against the law to sell alcohol to anyone under 18.

It is against the law for place of entertainment, or clubs, to sell alcohol to anyone under 18.

It is against the law to allow to condone or allow the sale of alcohol to anyone under the age of 18.

It is against the law to allow anybody under 16 to be in pubs, clubs/nightclubs unless accompanied by an adult.

It is against the law for anyone under 18 to try to buy or consume alcohol in licensed premises.

It is against the law for someone to buy alcohol on behalf of anyone else if they are under 18.

It is legal for someone aged 16/17 to consume wine, beer or cider as part of a meal, if they are accompanied by adults.

It is legal if an alcohol retailer can demonstrate that they have taken steps to verify the person’s age.

It is legal if an alcohol retailer can demonstrate that they had exercised all due diligence to avoid selling alcohol to children.

All of the above carry an unlimited fine in a Magistrates’ Court

It is illegal for someone under 18 to supply alcohol unless supervised by an adult. There is a penalty fine of up to £200 for this offence.

If alcohol is sold on more than two occasions from the same premises within a 3 month period, there can be an unlimited fine or suspension of a holders licence or a closure order.

From May 2015, it is no longer illegal to liqueur sweets and chocolates to someone under 16.

Education Schemes

In most police force areas, the offence of selling alcohol to a person under 18 years of age can be dealt with by a £90 penalty notice and in some areas can be addressed by an education scheme – i.e. retraining the offender to prevent further sales.

Age verification tailored for online alcohol retail business:

We offer a range of seamless age verification services that can be used to check your customers’ eligibility. Whichever service you choose can be tailored to the way you do business.

Batch file checks

Many of the online alcohol retailers we work with choose to submit all their personal details of their customers at the end of the business day, and submit them as a batch for verification in one go. This is a process which is popular with online alcohol retailers working on third-party platforms such as eBay. Batch file is the simplest way to access our services, requiring no integration or plugins.

You choose when and how you wish to process the data. The process is easy – upload a file onto your AgeChecked portal, and we send you the results back within a few minutes. Choose from a range of methods, the most appropriate checks for your business and customer base.

Self-verification

The AgeChecked customer model is the most sophisticated ‘plug and play’ age verification available online. Plugins are available for a range of popular e-commerce platforms: Magento, Shopify, Woo-commerce etc. No integration is necessary, so you can be up and running in a matter of minutes.

Customers can choose from a range of verification methods – the more methods, the higher the pass rates. Suppose an online alcohol retailer, selling via Shopify, finds that batch file processing model won’t cover every customer – this is often the case when products have a work-based delivery address. In this instance, customers can be supplied with a unique link to the AgeChecked website where they can self-verify using their driving licence, passport, birth certificate, etc.

API integration

If you’re looking for a totally seamless age verification which retains the customer entirely in your brand environment, then API calls to our services would be the ideal integration method.

API integration gives you full flexibility to run staged verifications with first, second and even third passes of our various services, to maximize pass rates, whilst keeping costs to a minimum. The only service not available using API is verification via payment card, due to Payment Card Industry Security Protocols.

You can find out more about API in the developers’ section of this site.

Batch file checks

Many of the online alcohol retailers we work with choose to submit all their personal details of their customers at the end of the business day, and submit them as a batch for verification in one go. This is a process which is popular with online alcohol retailers working on third-party platforms such as eBay. Batch file is the simplest way to access our services, requiring no integration or plugins.

You choose when and how you wish to process the data. The process is easy – upload a file onto your AgeChecked portal, and we send you the results back within a few minutes. Choose from a range of methods, the most appropriate checks for your business and customer base.

Self-verification

The AgeChecked customer model is the most sophisticated ‘plug and play’ age verification available online. Plugins are available for a range of popular e-commerce platforms: Magento, Shopify, Woo-commerce etc. No integration is necessary, so you can be up and running in a matter of minutes.

Customers can choose from a range of verification methods – the more methods, the higher the pass rates. Suppose an online alcohol retailer, selling via Shopify, finds that batch file processing model won’t cover every customer – this is often the case when products have a work-based delivery address. In this instance, customers can be supplied with a unique link to the AgeChecked website where they can self-verify using their driving licence, passport, birth certificate, etc.

API integration

If you’re looking for a totally seamless age verification which retains the customer entirely in your brand environment, then API calls to our services would be the ideal integration method.

API integration gives you full flexibility to run staged verifications with first, second and even third passes of our various services, to maximize pass rates, whilst keeping costs to a minimum. The only service not available using API is verification via payment card, due to Payment Card Industry Security Protocols.

You can find out more about API in the developers’ section of this site.